Melancholy Baby
by EmlovesM
Summary: Caledon Hockley is devastated after the death of his fiance aboard the infamous Titanic. He do anything to have his Rose back. To do it right. He'd do anything in his power to do it over again.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Late April 1912

The clouds sagged low and gray over the skyscrapers of Manhattan, so dark and ominous that one could feel the tide of grief lap over the city, the angel of death breathing down their throats. The air outside was heavy with moisture and virulent sorrow which the bartender assumed is what lured his lone customer in at such an odd hour. He sat at the end of the bar his nose deep in his glass of scotch and ever so often he would let out a melancholy sigh that fed the gloom of the day.

Every once and a while he would beckon for him to refill his glass and each time the bartender gave him a cautionary glance. This man looked to be in his mid thirties,well dressed in a suit and tie, his dark hair slicked back over his head. He must have been of some wealth because every time he refilled him he'd slap a generous dollar bill on the table without so much as grumbling for change. The bartender knew it would not do well for this man, this person of privilege, to be seen stumbling around

Midtown in the early hours of the day but after a while he had come not to care. Leave him be, he told himself. No reason for him to meddle in the gritty affairs of the moneyed.

"You all right there, sir." He asked carefully, topping him off for the third time. He didn't do so much as grunt, but as he withdrew the bottle after only filling the glass half way there appeared a brief spark in his flaccid, dark eyes.

"Leave it." He croaked. His voice was hoarse and brittle from too many smokes or too much crying, that he couldn't tell. Still, he wasn't the kind of person to deny a man his alcohol. He understood his desire to sink into inebriated stupor. He could see that it was a heavy grief that weighed on this man's shoulders.

It was around his sixth glass of scotch that he retrieved a small, square piece of parchment from his coat pocket and began to turn it over in his hands, thumbing its tattered ends. And then he began to croon to it.

The bartender sighed in exasperation. He hated when they started to sing. Even the liveliest drunks, his Irish kinsman who sang their merry tunes in his bar late at night, assailed his ears. The sad drunks were the worst though, their cracked voices and downhearted tunes made his heart heave for the things he had lost.

_Come to me my melancholy baby, __Cuddle up and don't be blue . . . _

_All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe. You know dear that I'm in love with you..._

The bartender finally walked up and snatched the bottle of scotch away. He looked down at the piece of yellowed paper the man was holding and realized that it was not a card at all but a photograph.

At first he thought he must have cut it from a magazine for no girl he'd ever laid eyes on had ever been that pretty. She was ivory skinned, with rich curls swept on top of her head. Her lucid eyes stared almost accusingly out of the paper and directly out at the poor fellow, full lips parted as if about to say something to the man that coveted her image.

"Is that your girl?" He asked, taking his empty glass and wiping it clean of alcohol with a dirty rag. The man nodded at first but then began to slowly shake his head.

"I suppose she was once. But now she's gone." He said feebly yet not so much as choking back a tear.

"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. It's a shame. Such a lovely lass." He slapped a hand on the man's shoulder but it rendered no physical response.

"She's gone." He repeated. "And I do anything to have her back. Anything to have my Rose back." He said, his voice growing in volume and fortitude.

"Oh I'm sure you'll see her again someday when the good Lord sees fit."

"Oh, I will." He said fiercely. "And when I do I won't let her leave me. Not ever." And for a moment the bartender saw the fiery fervor of a jilted soul in his sallow face.

But it wasn't long before he dissolved back into despair and began to curse and demand more alcohol. It was then that the bartender threw down his rag and threw the dejected fellow right out on his duff.

The bartender watched as the man hobbled to his feet. He dusted his suit free of grit and removed a small bottle of brandy from the inside of his lapel and took one long swig. He watched him set off down the street singing once more, crying for his melancholy baby to come back to him.

And at the same time, somewhere only a few miles away, the girl in the picture, his melancholy baby, was weeping too. Sobbing tears of joy as she was reunited with a lost love.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

December 1916

The little girl wove herself through the frigid air, lacing between shoppers and pedestrians. She felt nary a chill as she scampered through the crowd, just the unadulterated cheer that invigorated the air at Christmastime. It made her heart excited and restless. It made her spirit bright. It made her want to play. And right that moment she had only one game in mind: escape Mamma.

Oh how clever she felt, how sly and slippery. She loved to make people fret over her. It thrilled her to hear their anxious voices calling her name before she jumped out and surprised them where they stood. Especially her father who was particularly awful at finding her. He'd call and call her name, come so close to finding her, so close she could reach out and touch him, then think better of it and walk away. It made the girl fall into fits of giggles just watching him and it made her think highly of her hiding skills. It shouldn't be too difficult to find a hiding place here, she gathered, with so many petticoats swishing about and her being so small it would be easy to conceal herself amongst them.

Just as the girl had cleared her mother's sight it started to snow. Delighted, she opened her mouth and tried to catch snowflakes on the tip of her tongue, just how her father had shown her. It was more difficult than she anticipated, for as soon as she though one would land on her tongue the brisk December wind swirled it away. Indignant and determined, she would chase one through the air with a protruding pink tongue until finally a tiny white flake chanced upon it. She laughed at her triumph and just as she swallowed her snowflake a hand reached out and grabbed her by the sleeve. The little girl's heart panicked for a moment, thinking a wicked stranger may have just snatched her before she realized that it was her own mother who had caught her.

"Come here, you!" She said her voice light enough for the little girl to know she wasn't angry with her, nor was she at all worried for her. She was just as the little girl knew her to be, jolly and happy with a brilliant smile and a swollen belly.

The little girl admonished herself for not thinking more of Mamma. Running so fast to keep up with her might have hurt her baby sister. How badly she wanted a baby sister. Her mother and father kept telling her it may not be so but she refused to hear of it. She could not conceive her life without a little sister. It had to be so. She would will it to be so. She would do anything for it to be a sister.

"Are we going to buy presents for the baby, Mama?" She asked, watching her mother shake her head.

"The baby won't be here in time for Christmas. I am buying gifts for your father." She said with that knowing glimmer in her eye. She had a secret. The little girl could tell.

The little girl's heart quickened as they entered the Garment District. So many stores, so many new things, so many fine ladies that it made her ache with envy. The little girl looked down at her scuffed shoes and second hand dress and frowned. She wished she looked as lovely as they did. And most of all she wished that she looked like the little girls she and her father saw in Central Park. The little girls who wore satin and lace; that pushed tiny prams and held china dolls in their gloved hands. Her father had promised her that St. Nicholas would bring her a china doll for Christmas and all that autumn she was buzzing with excitement just dreaming of the weight of the doll in her arms.

"Oh, Mamma, Look!" She pointed at the toy store, at the display of Christmas dolls in the window. Their glassy cheeks painted rosy and their beautiful frocks laced with holly and mistletoe. Her mother looked up and regarded the dolls looking slightly crestfallen. She gripped her daughter's hand tighter and pulled her along.

"We're going to Macy's." She said stiffly. "Come on." The little girl could see a fresh wave of disappointment fall over her mother's weary face and she felt a pang of guilt in her heart for even mentioning the dolls.

Her spirits were no better lifted at the department store, the girl observed. For when they got there the store was jammed with people holding boxes upon boxes and bags upon bags. It was so very close to Christmas and people were rushing to get their shopping done in time for the holiday. She watched her mother's eyes pour over the crowd for some way to get in. The little girl wondered how they would fit in the store, her and her mother with her huge belly.

"You stay here." She instructed, putting two hands on the little girl's shoulders and backing her up against the cold brick. "I'll be right out." The little girl watched her mother edge herself into the crowd. She could still see the top of her scarlet head even after her body has disappeared into the store.

She slumped back onto the brick watching her breath hang in the air, taking in the happy disarray all around her. She wouldn't move this time, little Molly Dawson vowed to herself. She wouldn't dare. Not on her baby sister's life.

...

Caledon Hockley cursed the air under his breath. His car had been stalled on Fifth Avenue for no less than ten minutes! Damn New York! He'd rather be in Philadelphia with his inexorably needy wife and spoiled children. New York was splendid in the winter but its streets were too filthy and congested for his liking. He'd had enough of this. He needed a smoke.

He stepped right out of the car and into traffic, ignoring the shouts and beeping horns as he did. When he finally reached the sidewalk he leaned against a store front and lit up, relishing in a long drag of his pipe. It was good long while before he felt the lightning down his spine. The inexplicable sixth sense that someone's eyes were upon him.

He looked over and saw her. The lone little girl who was looking at him. She couldn't have been any older than five. She had her palms placed on a window pain and was looking sideways towards him, head tilted in scrutiny. She wore scarcely anything, Cal judged, considering the fierce cold that night. Her stockings looked thin; her dress too small, and her wool wrap sagged off her little frame. A poor immigrant child, he guessed, Irish maybe. But that was not the first thing Cal noticed. It was the jumble of beautiful red curls that cascaded down her back.

He stared back at her for a long while, noting the rose red of her hair, and she stared back at him in careful examination the way most children do. He flashed a handsome grin. She smiled back. Her heart and her trust had been won just like that. As he approached she looked back up at the store window with such painful longing it almost broke his heart. Almost.

"What are you doing out here all alone?" He asked genially. The little girl looked from him to the window and back again. The window was full of dolls. The kind of dolls his daughter Florence had dozens of, frilly and petite with their dainty limbs and painted faces. "You want one of those?"

"Oh, yes." Said the child breathlessly, pressing her cheeks to the pane. In the warm light of the shop window her likeness had become more apparent. It wasn't just the color and swirl of her hair; it was her face, the apples of her, the arch of her eyes, and the ivory glow of her skin. He could not believe it.

She was no child of immigrants. Her little wind-chime voice held no trace of a foreign tongue. But it was not a New York accent, either. Interesting…he thought. Who did she belong to?

"Perhaps Santa Claus will bring you one for Christmas, hmm?" He mused to her.

"I don't think he will." She replied unhappily. "Last year all I got was a bear and two oranges. And the bear was missing and eye so Mamma put a patch over it so he wouldn't suffer too badly without it. I try very hard to care for him well but I can't help but think Santa must not be very fond of me if all he gives me is a one-eyed bear while other children get sweets and beautiful baby dolls." The little girl was quiet for a long time. Cal stood beside her watching her forlorn eyes trying to think up something clever to say.

"Maybe St. Nicholas gave you_ that_ bear because he knew it needed someone very special to care for him in his _condition_." The little girl's face was overcome with epiphany. "I mean you can't give an injured bear to just anybody. It requires a special person to love and care for a bear like that. Only the purest of heart." He affirmed with only the slightest sarcasm in his voice. He reached out and placed an index finger on her little nose and she blinked and grin her whole being overcome with revelation.

"I do love him very much, sir! I call him Patch and he sleeps with me in my bed most every night right in the crook of my arm." She said, proudly pointing to where the bear rested each night. "And every night I sing to him and tell him a story just like Mamma sings to me. I'm very kind to him." She declared in her precocious little voice. "But I do wish that Santa may bring me a doll this year so he'd have a friend for when he gets lonely." Cal saw how the little girl's lissome fingers reached down just then to fiddle with the hem of her tattered dress. Cal knew she would get no doll this year and so did she. He could tell by her despondent looks and melancholy sighs that she understood what rich and what poor was and she knew what side she was on.

He pitied this impoverished child not only for her lack of means but for her lack of ignorance. Maybe he wouldn't have felt it so much if she hadn't resembled his dead fiancé so. Maybe he could have walked away. Maybe he could have left her alone in the street on that bitter December night. But he couldn't. Something deep down in that pit of remorse would not let him.

The little girl let out a shiver and held herself tight and Cal fought the overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and hold her close. She was so little and he could already see it in her. She was Rose. He saw it in her eyes and in her very person. She was his Rose reincarnated and best of all she was Rose untainted. She was his chance at redemption and he would not let her slip away. Not like the last time.

"You know, I have about a hundred dolls like that at my house." He beguiled. The little girl looked up at him, blue eyes wide.

"You do?" She asked, astonished.

"Why, yes. They're everywhere and I have hardly any use for them." He sighed, feigning contempt. "It's really a shame their not enjoyed by someone who appreciates them." The little girl's attention had been piqued and so had her intuition. She let out a long, labored sigh of embroidered longing that Cal was sure was not only intended to tug on the heartstrings but snap them. So she was clever.

"Would you like one?" The little girl's face beamed with excitement but then fell again as she contemplated it. Her father had said Santa may bring her one for Christmas if she was well behaved. But Christmas was days away, a lifetime if your only three. Plus, right now she was being very naughty running off to look at the dolls when Mamma had told her not to move. Santa probably wouldn't bring her anything at all now. And here was this nice man offering her several dolls for nothing at all.

"More than anything in the whole world." She gaped in awe of her luck. She had never felt cleverer. A little actress she was. Just like Mamma.

"Come with me, then." He said, taking a few retreating steps. "We'll take my car to my house and you can pick out what you like." He said beckoning her forward.

"Then I'll come back here, right?" She asked turning his offer over in her mind.

"Of course!" He told her. " I'll bring you right back here. To this very spot. I promise."

But the little girl hesitated, looking over at the crowded Macy's department store. How long would her mother be, she wondered? Would she be back in time for her return or would her mother find her gone and become angry with her? She tried to picture her mother livid but nothing conjured. Instead she saw her smiling face as she approached with armfuls of porcelain and lace. Four beautiful dolls, no six! Three for her and three for baby sister! They could play together all day during the winter with those lovely toys. Her, her mother and her darling baby sister.

Without wavering, the girl leapt up and took the strangers hand. It was soft and warm like the inside of a glove. So unlike her father's nimble fingers.

"Where do you live?" She asked happily trailing his steps.

"In a place called Philadelphia." His voice made it sound like an enchanted kingdom

"Is it far away?" She asked tentatively.

"No. Not really." He told her as they crossed the street. She looked up at him as they approached his sleek black automobile, eyes gleaming. "Where do you live?"

"I don't quite know." The little girl screwed up her face in contemplation. "But I think they call it Hell's Kitchen." She said firmly without so much as hesitating over the word hell. Cal looked away from her and grimaced. A terrible neighborhood, no doubt full of equally deplorable company. Who in the world would leave their child alone, at night, in the cold? And so far away from home? He considered the wiles she displayed to him earlier. There was no doubt in his mind that her mother was a prostitute. Some gorgeous, penniless whore selling herself along with the retailers on Fifth. The shame of it! This little doll would do much better where he was taking her.

"Wait!" She cried, just as his driver had opened the door for them. She looked around them for all the world and more.

"What's the matter, sweet pea?" He implored, worrying she had become indecisive. What if she changed her mind? What if she cried out? He'd just have to take her anyway.

"I need to remember this place. So I know where to find my Mamma." She was so adamant that he let her stand there for awhile, in the middle of Fifth Avenue, taking in everything she would leave behind. The snowflakes, the lights, the madness. Oh, how she would come to miss the madness.

"Alright, I'm ready." She had no fear. For enemies in her mind were crooked, bony men all dressed in black. They were toothless old women with plates of poisoned goodies. As Molly Dawson looked up at this man with the generous smile and eyes of burning coal she held no doubt in her mind. All would be well.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Summer 1925

"_Juliet! Juliet_!" The name fit her like a straightjacket, she thought firmly. A straightjacket of lace and pearls that scratched and choked at her neck. What she wouldn't give for a name of substance instead of the string of gems and love letters that was Juliet. But it was hers, nevertheless. Fighting the urge to conceal herself, Juliet Hockley swam up from the enchanted pages and leather bound wonder of a book to see who called her.

She could see her sailing towards her across the lawn, a white schooner on a sea of impossibly green grass, her long skirt swishing and billowing in the breeze. She wore an expression of stern contempt as she often did, which made Juliet wonder how lovely she'd be if she had been blessed with not so sour a disposition. Or maybe it was just her. For it seemed that out of all her siblings, her mother was cross with her the most.

"What is it, mother?" She answered with vague concern, cradling her chin in the palm of her hand. She was sprawled out on the lawn under the shade of the big oak tree delving deep into the Land of Oz. Dorothy had finally reached the Emerald City when the sharp hooks of her mother's voice had pulled her away from Dorothy's fate.

"Juliet!" She huffed, tugging her daughter off her stomach by the sleeve of her dress. "Look at you, you're filthy! Ugh!" Her mother's feathery hands did their best to brush the grass off her front and pluck the tiny green fibers from her hair but once she stepped back her face contorted into an ugly scowl that suggested dissatisfaction.

"Is that all you wanted to tell me?" She asked, a flicker of aberrant mischief dancing in her eyes.

"No, you insolent child." She sighed, taking hold of her daughter's wrist and marching her back towards the house. "It's tea time and the ladies are here. I can't very well serve the tea without all three of my lovely daughters at the table." Eleanor Hockley gritted her teeth and Juliet rolled her eyes. She could not see how her presence could ever be significant. Her mother always told her that she was no prize. She didn't look right, or act right, or even smell right (like the trees, her mother said). She was nothing like her porcelain faced sisters, so dark and dainty they could shatter.

Eleanor Hockley watched her eldest daughters face for any trace of rebellion to reprove, but there was none. Juliet stared placidly on, easy blue eyes full peace and patience like they always were. Eleanor always thought it necessary to keep Juliet's vanity at a minimum, lest she ever get too proud. Lord only knows what confidence would do to a girl like Juliet.

_"Mamma?"_ That loathsome name. _Mamma_s were foreigners and impoverished women, not a title worthy of a lady with so much class and dignity. How many times had she told her never to call her that name? The reproach bubbled up under her lips but as she looked upon her daughter she recognized the familiar look of pensiveness that intrigued her.

'What is it?" She said cautiously.

"Well, I was just wondering. How odd would it be if I changed my name?"

"What?" She gasped, temporarily awestruck at thoughts that must cross Juliet's mind.

"I was just thinking, as you called me, how odd the name Juliet is. It's so…dramatic and lacy. Like a princess made of porcelain or a fairy queen. And I despise how everyone feels the need to inquire as to the whereabouts of Romeo." Juliet said, with an exasperated roll of her eyes. "It doesn't suit me." Juliet bit down hard on her lip before she said anything more. "But the name Dorothy suits me, don't you think?"

Eleanor's stomach lurched with the laughter. It took all her might to suppress it back down her throat. Their Juliet, a Dorothy? The suggestion was absurd. Dorothy was a common name, lackluster and pastoral. Of course, she'd had her reservations about Juliet but she had needed a name, something other than _the girl_. And Caledon was always calling her his jewel…Eleanor shook the memory from her mind. Juliet _was_ a Juliet. From the red-gold shine of her hair to the butterfly flight of her smile. Like something made of fairy dust and and happy thoughts, she was. William Shakespeare couldn't have dreamed up a better one, she thought, and that made Eleanor quite bitter.

"You silly girl! That's preposterous!"

"No it isn't!" She insisted. "Juliet is a silly name! It reminds me of a silly girl who kills herself over the death of a silly boy! What a stupid way to die! I'd rather be named after a heroine like Dorothy, or Alice, or Anne. Someone who has her own adventures and isn't besotted by any man. Someone who is strong. I don't think that's a strange thing to wish for. Haven't you ever wished you were called something else?"

Eleanor suddenly became tremendously aware of the heat of Juliet's skin in her hand. As much as she pretended to love her and cherish her as much as her own children, the truth was she did not. Sometimes the reality of it crushed her like an avalanche of bricks. This was not her child. She belonged to someone else. Someone dead in the ground no doubt, but still…someone unknown to her. Someone whose blood still coursed through veins and breathed life on earth through this girl they called Juliet. She couldn't help but wonder who had made this strange little creature who spoke beyond her years. What odd disposition was inherited with those lovely eyes and hair afire that could not be washed away by years of careful corrections and repeated rebukes?

Maybe this sudden madness was her own name calling her. For surely somewhere in that brain, buried in cobwebs of fantasies and nonsense memories of her past life lingered. Eleanor often hoped that maybe one day she'd hit her head and remember all of it. Every single memory she had leading up to when Caledon brought her here would come flooding back, and she too restless to remain would chase those memories to the ends of the earth and leave her in peace. These were futile fantasies, she knew. Her husband had fed Juliet enough love and lies for her to believe she was his girl by blood and by bond.

"Of course not." She answered, sternly. "I like my name very well. But if its Dorothy you want, its Dorothy you'll get nicknames and all. So come along, Dottie!" With that Juliet grimaced and Eleanor smiled a smile of satisfaction. She knew how much Juliet hated pet names. On herself, at least. As for on others, the same could not be said.

"Florrie! Cece!" She exclaimed, rushing over to her sister's like she hadn't seen them in a thousand years. At the sound of her squeal her darling girl raised their heads in equal measures of delight. There was something to be said about the intensity of love amongst sisters not bound by blood. Florence and Cecelia, her own daughters, were so passionately devoted to their sister, and she to them, that Eleanor didn't think anything could ever be done about it. An unbreakable thread winds its way through the hearts of sisters, she heard Juliet affirm to them one lazy afternoon. Nothing can ever dissever it.

" Jules! One must always greet their guests before they greet their kin. Please say hello to the ladies." She instructed through gritted teeth.

"Oh! I'm sorry. Hello, everyone!" She said radiantly, before jumping into giggly conversation with Florence and Cecelia. The impudence of it! And yet only kind eyes fell upon the likes of Juliet.

All the ladies loved Juliet. And who was she to deny them the small pleasure of seeing her at tea? All these ladies of class and refinement seemed to drink up her precocious air and spontaneous wit that always reared its abhorrent head at the precise moment it was needed most. Why did no one see what she saw in Juliet? Her quiet defiance and feral heart, her exalted presence that threatened to upstage the personalities of her more meek offspring.

"What are you young ladies chatting about so excitedly over there?" The elderly Mrs. Franklin implored at the children, whose faces were flushed with heat and animation.

"Oh, Mrs. Franklin, were planning to put on a play!" Said her cheerful little Cecelia. At age eight she was a dream come true. All hazel like herself.

"A play? Well, that is exciting! And pray tell, who is the intended audience?" Another, Mrs. Harding, asked her with a mischievous glimmer in her beady eyes.

" Well, it's usually just the help," Cecelia said frankly, which made Eleanor's cheeks burn, "but I suppose we could perform it for yourselves, if you like." There was a flutter of endearments across the table. _How lovely. How adorable. Aren't they the sweetest sisters?_

"What's the play called?" Asked one Mrs. Coulter.

"It's a secret." Replied Juliet swiftly. "A Hockley sister original."

"Really? How exciting!"

"Which is why we should be going. We'll have to rehearse or it'll never be ready by this afternoon."

"Oh yes, Eleanor, don't make them stay on our account. There much too young to be spending hours gossiping around the tea table!"

"Please, Mamma. The play." Juliet implored. The light from the window caught in her doleful eyes. They shone like sea glass in the airy dining room, and after all the years of looking at them Eleanor still wasn't immune.

"Yes, alright, go!" God help her. Who could refuse those insipid eyes? It better be a damn magnificent play, she thought within herself.

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The sun was high in the sky when the three girls reached the green. They had an hour and half, at least. Two at most to rehearse their play and Juliet was determined to make this the most unforgettable performance they had ever done. A river would soon be running through the Hockley estate, with all the tears they would incur.

"Alright. If we're going to do Titanic were going to need a boy and a boat. Florrie come with me. We're going to have to carry the row boat from the shed. Cece, go fetch Callie in the nursery."

"What!" Cece cried. "Why do we need him? He's such a baby! Besides, I don't want to go back into the house. Not while they're in there. They'll want to pinch my cheeks!"

"We need a boy to play Papa and Callie's the only boy we've got. Besides, you're too little to drag the boat all the way from there to here!" Florrie scolded, her innate coldness icing her eyes.

"But what about my cheeks?" She howled, clapping her hands over them.

"You're little. You'll be able to sneak past them."Juliet reasoned. "Be quick about though," She added. "We've a play to put on and little time to prepare." She and Florrie turned their backs to Cecelia, grasped hands and started toward the shed, fraternal twins in their matching blue dresses and long curly hair, ebony black and golden in the sun.

Little Cecelia Hockley huffed and started back towards the white Victorian mansion, feeling a little jilted. She tried to imagine herself on stage beside Florrie and Jules, a moving picture actress just as her sister Jules described, striking and glamorous. The apple of everyone's eye. Invisioning herself the subject of applause made Cece's heart swell. She may be the smallest but she didn't have to act that way. On stage she could be anyone she liked. Juliet had told her so. And Juliet, being twelve and almost a lady, knew everything there was to know.

As she approached the open dining room door her cheeks burned. Even the anticipation of the bite of old nimble fingers was painful to her. What business did old ladies have grabbing at her face, trying to snipe the cuteness from her apple ripe skin. Her little heart skipped like a rabbit's as she edged closer, back flat against the wall. She could hear them prattling to each other just beyond. Her ears pricked and tingled at the sound of her sister's name. _Juliet._ Why were they speaking about her know-it-all sister?

Cece listened sharply, pressing her ear hard to the wallpaper. Something about Juliet. The apple of her father's eye. _Lovely Juliet. Clever Juliet. Orphan Juliet._

Cecelia gasped, clamping her hand over her mouth. She had heard it, all of it. Things she should not have heard she did. She forgot all about Callie and the play. Her mind weighed on the secret she carried now. This precious thing that only the grownups knew, and now she held it in her hand like a diamond she'd found in the dirt. Did she tell her sister? Or did she keep it for herself as a weapon of some kind? For even eight year olds knew that secrets like this were dangerous to have, and glorious to know.

Perhaps Cece would get that new dress from Mamma, or that trip to California from Papa. After all, she had secret. And secrets don't always keep. Especially in the hands of little girls.

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A/N: I'm going to skip time a lot. One chapter might be in the future, and the next might be in the past and vice versa. I'm also going to switch POV's a lot so just let me know if and when it gets confusing.


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